Mr. Peter Kearns:

To expand on the actual support for DPOs in terms of moving forward to realise the UNCRPD, I will give an example in the north west, in Sligo. Sligo Disabled Person's Organisation had its first AGM last week. My role was to give technical support to that process which took a couple of months. It involved training the members in committee skills and also using creative ways of engaging people across impairments. I worked with people with the label of intellectual disability, or the label of CP or the label of autism to find a space and a level of communication and work their best to realise the AGM. That takes a lot of work. It takes time for the organisation to invest in that process as well. That is the type of support, looking at disabled people like myself who are activists, that we are giving to local DPOs. Sligo DPO now is part of Sligo PPN. Part of that will involve a video being made by disabled people on the local community of disabled people in Sligo for the PPN.

Leitrim DPO is involved in the housing strategy group. The group has to find a community centre space. We do not use disability sector facilities because the culture of the organisations is not the same as the culture of the DPOs. They are usually, or mostly, run by non-disabled people who are not necessarily coming from a human rights social model perspective. Community centres around the country like Sligo Northside Community Centre, have a culture of working with different marginalised groups. When disabled people go in to community centres they can be welcomed and they are able to think. An example of that would be with the Leitrim DPO. I asked disabled young people on a one to one basis in the day centre if they would like to get their own place. They all said no. Then we brought them in to a community space in Drumshanbo and we did a MABS workshop on money management and budgeting for going on a date, clothes, taxi, food, etc. At the end of the workshop, I asked the same people in a collective space, to create a fun-based method, if they would like to get their own place.

I asked where they would go after a date. He said the date should ask you where do you go. I asked would they like to get their own place. All the same people who said "No" in the day centre all said that yes, they would like to get their own place. The difference was having the culture of the community centre and knowing what they said if they had the choice to talk about their lived experience. In terms of the actual support for DPO processes, it is important that disabled activists and DPOs are given resources even in terms of hiring community facilities or hiring ISL teachers to do workshops. That all costs money and the Independent Living Movement Ireland, ILMI, uses resources as best it can to support the local DPOs and their bases.